On Saturday at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Lucknow Super Giants triumphed spectacularly. Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 186-run target was never enough. But the bowlers made sure SRH stayed in the game until the timeout at the end of the 13th over.
Despite Lucknow being far behind the asking rate, the visitors were able to catch up in the chase thanks to some blazing stroke play from Nicholas Pooran and a poor tactical decision by Aiden Markram.
Abhishek Sharma’s bizarre over resulted in 31 runs being scored. And Pooran, who scored 44 off 13 balls to finish the chase with four balls remaining, showed no signs of slowing down.
Gambhir asked to celebrate and slap SRH in the face
The ugly behaviour of the SRH fans during the first innings and the subsequent “Kohli” chants got a lot of attention online despite the victory, which put LSG back in the running for a playoff spot.
The SRH batters Heinrich Klaasen and Abdul Samad were reportedly enraged by a contentious no-ball decision in the 19th over. And the fans reportedly threw nuts and bolts at the LSG dugout.
The team members fled and sprinted onto the field, causing the umpires to stop the game and step in. After the infamous altercation between the RCB star and Gautam Gambhir on May 1.
Contrary to what was anticipated on social media, Gambhir did not respond to or gesture to the crowd during the entire game. However, just before LSG’s victory in Hyderabad, bowling coach Morne Morkel approached Gambhir from behind.
As they were sitting in the dugout and motioned for him to celebrate and put the boot in SRH’s face following those “Kohli” shouts. Naveen-ul-Haq had a run-in with Kohli on May 1. And was laughing as Gambhir grinned broadly.
The SRH players were astonished by what happened in the stands during their innings. Klaasen criticized the incident for taking the team’s momentum away. ”Since you want to be at your home venue. I’ll be honest and say I’m disappointed in the crowd”.
”You want people to want to come to see you perform at your local venue, so you’re very disappointed. That stopped a lot of progress. There have been some less-than-stellar decisions made by the umpires, but that is just a part of the game, so move on”.